Questions Answered

I’m convinced that our whole criminal justice system is in serious need of reformation and restructuring because it is not working and many inequities exist within it. Christians are divided about the issue of capital punishment. First, there is the …Read More

There’s a great controversy within the Christian church about that question. Some people take the position that under no circumstances should a Christian encumber himself in financial indebtedness, quoting such passages as “Owe no one anything except to love one …Read More

In recent years we have seen the beginnings of sectarian schools in numbers that are unprecedented in American history—save for the manifestation of parochial schools sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. In the case of Catholic theology and practice, the …Read More

Is there an explicit, direct, biblical prohibition of casino gambling or lotteries? Not that I know of. However, the Christian church has consistently taken a dim view of casino gambling and the use of lotteries based on the implications of …Read More

There is a tremendous difference between the popular definition of a miracle in our culture and the narrow technical definition of a miracle that theologians work with in their science. We can often have serious communication problems when people ask …Read More

Some Christians believe that the New Testament church replaces Old Testament Israel as the subject matter of Old Testament prophecies about Israel. That is to say that the church today is regarded as the new Israel. If this is so, …Read More

The New Testament gives us some broad principles on how we are supposed to respond to government. For example, Romans 13 elaborates on the origin and institution of government as something that God ordains. The great theologian Augustine said that …Read More

To try to answer that question in this short format would almost do more damage than good. I could put in a commercial here that Tyndale House published a book I wrote titled Chosen by God, which devotes itself entirely …Read More

There’s only one supreme Lord over all the world, and that’s God. We are told in the Old Testament that this whole concept of dominion was shared with Adam and Eve. Man was given dominion over the earth to be …Read More

By all means! It is intensely rational. Now, I’ve had the question asked of me, “Is it true that you are a Christian rationalist?” I said, “By no means! That’s a contradiction in terms. A rationalist is somebody who embraces …Read More

We need to make some important distinctions about the biblical meaning of “fearing” God. These distinctions can be helpful, but they can also be a little dangerous. When Luther struggled with that, he made this distinction, which has since become …Read More

That question comes up every year at Christmastime. In the first place, there’s no direct biblical commandment to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25. There’s nothing in the Bible that would even indicate that Jesus was born on …Read More

We have to make a distinction, as I think the Bible does, between the judgment that we receive immediately upon our death, at which we are brought before Christ, and what the Bible speaks of as the last judgment. There’s …Read More

A few years ago, I was involved in training the laity of a local church in the activity we call personal evangelism, and I did that over a period of sixteen weeks. Of that sixteen weeks, about three weeks required …Read More

A lot of the debate over divorce has to do with the way we interpret and handle Jesus’ teaching on the subject. In Matthew’s Gospel, for example, the Pharisees come to Jesus for a decision and they are trying to …Read More